


Fluffabet 2.0 - Nyx

by Aithilin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Fluff, Fluffabet, M/M, Slice of Life, prompt fills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 09:11:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12478212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: A series of prompts featuring Nyx and Noct.





	Fluffabet 2.0 - Nyx

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted from my [Fluffabet 2.0](http://aithilin.tumblr.com/post/166728637469/fluffabet-20) over at [Tumblr](http://aithilin.tumblr.com/).

_M. Mute_

“N-noct.”

When he did speak, it came out wrong— hoarse and slow, his throat burning as it closed around each sound. He could still feel it, the Lucian magic, burning through him, tearing him apart, turning him to ash. He could still feel himself crumbling beneath the power, sinking into something like the Crystal— or what he had assumed was the Crystal— surrounded once more by the stern, masked faces of long-dead kings of Lucis. He saw the blades and the armour, felt the heat and weight of it on him, forcing him into the same position, the same pattern. Into the ranks with the bastards who would sacrifice thousands of innocent lives for the sake of a bit of stone. 

Nyx didn’t know what woke him. But there was fire breathing life back into him, and he remembered the vague stories of the Astrals of Galahd. Of the Phoenix and the dead deemed worthy. 

It was all bullshit, he didn’t care what brought him back. 

But it hurt to speak. It hurt to move and to breathe and to join the hoard of traumatised refugees as they fled the city one way or another before the daemons descended into the fresh hunting grounds. 

He wondered if Libertus had always been this loud— the constant stream of noise and talk, whisking him through medic tents and shuffling crowds, fighting for places on trucks and in cars. No one wanted to get caught on the roads at night. 

To his merit, Libertus took the silence in stride. He examined the burns and the scars, made comments throughout. He found potions and elixirs and tried every trick known to the Glaive to ease the heat moving just beneath his best friend’s skin. He filled the quiet of the road, the havens, the outposts with a running commentary to keep the news flowing between them somehow. As if Nyx was deaf, not mute. As if he was incapable of hearing the lies about his prince— his king— seeping through the airwaves. 

By the time they reached Galdin Quay— the dust clinging to them just as much as the silence— the quiet had become smothering. Nyx saw the familiar ocean and stopped in his tracks. He could see forever on the horizon, the call of something sweet and free. Like home.

The refugees of the city gathered on the hillside once it became apparent that there were no ferries moving through the bay. Some found fishermen and scavengers, and all the sorts with boats and barges and the means to cross the water. 

Most just waited until they could try another means. 

Nyx stayed back as the crowd started to disperse, a hand on Libertus’ shoulder to keep him close as the rumours of safety in Lestallum moved through the crowd like a deafening siren’s call. As the reports of the Nifs offering passage on the other side of the fallen kingdom moved like an undercurrent, ready to drag down the unwary. 

He preferred to focus on the rumours of a prince— a young king— travelling the roads. Of errands and hunts and the soft sort of promises of a visit to see those who had lived through the tragedy of Insomnia. Nyx wanted to stay by the ocean a while longer, not go chasing ghosts. 

Libertus stayed with him, talked about home and food and all the things that reminded him of where they were going. 

When Noctis did arrive, it was after the crowd had moved on. After the most desperate returned to their own travels along the roads, risking the blockades and patrols. 

Nyx saw him first, his prince stumbling from the king’s car with a tired smile to his friends. Nyx saw the bruises, the bloodstains, the way the brat still tried to shrug off the concern of his friends. 

“Nyx?”

He wasn’t prepared to face Noctis. To feel those arms around him, those cool hands seeping the burning magic from him like a poultice. Like an antidote chasing away the poison in him.

He wasn’t prepared to grip Noctis like a lifeline— to realise how lost he had been. The taste of Noct’s lips was sweeter than the call of the ocean. 

His throat closed around the sounds as the Lucian magic struggled to keep its foothold in him, as it threatened to burn him again. The noise was slow, coarse, and barely louder than a whisper or a prayer. 

“Noct.”

 

——

_X. Xenophobic_

Most of the Crownsguard— those born and raised in Insomnia— seemed to think that it was a betrayal of Lucian sensibilities. That the training Noct was picking up, his lessons with the rats of the Kingsglaive, with the canon fodder, was some affront to the notions of honour and chivalry that acted as a pillar for the royal guard, to keep them on those moral heights they needed a ladder or a well-timed punch to get off of. 

Nyx had expected it, really. It had been happening ever since he got to the city. 

With every new wave of refugees from the islands, from Cavaugh, from beyond the Wall, there was a new push to throw them all back out. 

And now the Lucian prince was laughing as he learned the little tricks that kept those same refugees alive fighting a war they never wanted to be a part of. Now the prince had a braid in his hair and curved blade in his arsenal, and the ability to do more than just launch himself forward with his magic as if it was just a show of force. As if that’s all there was to it. 

“Is the prince turned wild?” 

“Is the prince’s charity involvement taking him away from his people?”

The headlines were endless. Attacking, disapproving. And Nyx hesitated because of it. 

Hated that he hesitated because of a few printed words. 

There was already talk of Noct slipping out of what was ‘right’ among the Lucian elite. 

“You shouldn’t worry so much,” Noct said one night, a plate of food between them— all sauce and spice and flat breads made for soaking it up. “Dad thinks it’s all bullshit, and it’s not what everyone thinks.”

“No, just the loudest, little star.” Nyx hated that it made him doubt himself. 

Libertus was loud about fighting back against it. He had no trouble throwing his muscle behind his words when it was needed— when the going got rough and the backlash fell onto their little community. Libertus could rail against the accusations that they were mercenaries, that they were leeches, that they were all going to break the great city apart. 

That Noctis was only interested now because he wasn’t Lucian. That the prince had a taste for rebellion and the exotic. 

Nyx hated that he could let himself think that about Noctis. 

Noctis, who sparred with any of the Kingsglaive who would train him, who made the effort to learn languages and ask questions and stepped back when asked. Who accepted when he was told that something— a tradition, a piece of history, a piece of honour— wasn’t for him. Not yet. Not without a few more braids and a few more battles. Noct who took everyone and everything as they came, because he had been taught that rulers cared for anyone under their protection. Even if he didn’t realise that he had absorbed that lesson. Whose closest friends made up more than just the image of the purity of the Lucian vanguard the royalists wished it did. 

“If there’s something I can do…”

It was muttered between them in the darkness of his little apartment. With the music blaring through the streets one late night. And Nyx could only smile at the idea that, if asked, the whole of the royal house could be behind Libertus’ rants against the injustice of the racism and exclusion the refugees were subjected to. He smiled that it was even on offer, as if he would ever ask that.

“It’s fine, little star.” Nyx didn’t want that weight on Noct too. “You already make it better.”

“Sap.”

“Obviously.”


End file.
